repair appliances, pick locks, jury-rig electrical power where there was
none before, unclog a grease trap, find a breaker, fix a refrigerator door.
And he is a close observer of every detail of human and mechanical
activity in the workplace—a guy who notices things—probably a result
of all those years looking for opportunities for criminality. Little gets by
him. If somebody's running a scam, Steven knows all about it. The idea,
more than likely, occurred to him first.
As we battled through party season at the Supper Club, Steven and I did
a lot of after-work drinking together, sitting around reviewing the events
of the evening, planning our moves for the next day, pondering the
mysteries of This Life We Live. I came to rely on him more and more, to
find out what was going on, to fix things, to help me in the crushing,
relentless routine of serving hundreds and hundreds of meals, different
menus every day, hors d'oeuvres, à la carte meals, managing a staff of
cooks that would swell into double digits for big events then shrink back
to a core group of about eight for regular service.
Buying 10,000 dollars-worth of meat a day gave me a strange and
terrible thrill, like riding a roller-coaster, and the simple act of moving
ceiling-high piles of perishable fish and produce through my kitchen
every day was a puzzle, a challenge I enjoyed. I liked being a general
again: deploying forces where needed, sending out flying squads of
cooks to put out brush fires on the buffet stations, arranging
reconnaissance, forward observers, communicating by walkie-talkie with
the various corners of the club: "More filet on buffet six," would come
the call. "More salmon on buffet four!" "This is security at the door. I
got a body count of three hundred and climbing! They're really coming
in!" Amusingly, we shared a radio band with a nearby undercover unit
from the street crimes division of the NYPD. They were always trying to
get us to change frequency, which we couldn't, as we used them all: one
for managers, one for kitchen, and a security band. After threats and
shouts didn't work, the cops got clever; they listened, got to know our
lingo and our locations and would play games with us, calling for "More